Quantum Fluctuations of Spacetime (World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics) (World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics) Vol.25

Three key aspects of quantum gravity are considered in this book: phenomenology, potential experimental aspects and foundational theory. The phenomenology is the treatment of metric quantum fluctuations as torsional curves that deviate from classical expectations. This leads to possible experimental configurations that may detect such fluctuations. Most of these proposed experiments are quantum optical measurements of subtle quantum gravity effects in the interaction of photons and atoms. The foundational discussions attempt to find an substratum to string theories, which are motivated by the phenomenological treatment. Quantum gravity is not the quantization of general relativity, but is instead the embedding of quantum theory and gravitation into a more fundamental field theoretic framework. The primary function of physics is to understand the universe according to a single set of principles that can be stated and formally manipulated in a consistent manner.